Posts tagged ‘Statistics’

The Government Statistician checked 29,501, and found that 25,754 (87.3%) were valid. Multiply that proportion by the 324,511 and you get 283,294 – just 1,733 signatures short of the number required. So why does the Government Statistician say they need 18,000 more signatures? An evil plot to subvert god’s will and prevent spanking through Satanic statistics?

No. Instead, its about the duplicates. The Government Statistician found 160 multiple signatures in the sample – 158 duplicates and 2 triplicates. The sample was 1/11th of the total, so this suggests that there will be a further 160 x 10 = 1,600 replicates in the sample where the other match is in the rest of the population – and therefore a further 1,600 x 10 hidden replicates in the population as a whole. Which pretty clearly gets us in the right ballpark. The problem is slightly more complicated than that, since signatures can be both invalid and duplicated; statisticians have a number of different ways of estimating this, but that’s about the stage I start seeing tentacles.

In other words, the sample only checked for duplicates within itself – it did not check for duplicates between the sample and the general survey. So the rate is actually much higher than that.

The important thing is that this is not a satanic statistical plot, but a problem of childbeaters being idiots who think that signing a petition multiple times helps their cause. We can only hope that they don’t think the same about voting.

And once again the 80% of the population that supports reasonable parenting being allowed are treated to a torrent of abuse by those who think they’re better people.

Given Bob showed his working, I don’t think it is unreasonable to question the statistics. No one called this a “satanic plot”, but plenty were wondering if it were a political one.

He might also feel free to show us a petition where “idiots” never signed twice? A year is a long time to remember whether you’ve signed something that you don’t spend all your time thinking about!

I wonder if IS signed the other petition, which called for the government to look into real reasons behind child abuse?

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